Why Your Media Needs Motion Design

Motion design is the art of using motion in media to convey ideas. That can be anything as simple as a slide transition or as extreme as an animation. Thanks to PowerPoint, it’s never been easier to add motion design to your media. Here are the four reasons why you need to start doing that:

Motion design is where the money is

In 2014, Mark Zuckerberg said “Most [of Facebook] will be video in five years time”. Look at your Newsfeed and tell us his prediction isn’t coming true. It’s not just video either. Modern marketers make all kinds of moving content: Gifs, boomerangs, animations and more.

It’s easy to see why they’re investing more in moving content. People watch and share it more than anything else. Here are the facts:

With our social media feeds full of motion content, we expect the same content from our business lives too. This consumer craving for moving content is changing every part of every industry. HTML5 was designed specifically to support moving content in everything from banner ads to mobile webpages. Enormous out of home advertisers are investing millions in moving displays, like the incredibly successful Adshel Live Platform.

With so much moving content to consume, consumers care much less about static media. Today, your media moves or your company dies. But why has moving content become critical to moving sales?

We pay more attention to moving content

We’re naturally drawn to moving objects. They excite us! But why do we find car races more exciting than car shows? Well, since caveman times, the middle temporal regions of our visual cortexes have lit up whenever we see moving objects. The same neurons which fired when we were tracking prey are the same ones which fire when we watch moving content today. Good motion design takes advantage of this fact. It uses movement to make us pay attention to important information.

Look at these two lists:

See how the moving list stands out more?

Good motion design also helps us pay attention by creating an easy to follow flow of ideas.

Just look at these two diagrams:

Not only does motion design help communicate ideas, it can communicate ideas on its own. This is because…

Motion is a language

Look at these two displays:

Here you can see how simple motion design communicates urgency, but it can be used to convey almost anything. Want to make your media feel lighthearted? Make your information pop onto the screen. Need something more serious? Connect your information with sharp straight lines.

Motion might be a language, but it’s one we all speak. Look at how the people around you move when they’re in a certain mood. Take the motions that convey their emotions, and apply them to parts of your media using PowerPoint. Simple! Not only is motion easy to understand, but…

It’s easy to add!

You don’t need to hire expensive motion designers to tap into this trend. Just use PowerPoint and its plugins to easily add motion design to your media. Many companies see motion design as the exclusive skill of expensive experts. Because of this misconception, motion design has become a multi-million dollar industry.

Making moving content in PowerPoint has several advantages:

It’s cheap

The average corporate video from a production house costs between $5000-$7500. They can justify this expense because of their expertise in advanced editing programs. That’s alright if you want special effects and animation, but what if you just want something simple? You’d be surprised by how much moving content you can make in PowerPoint, and the results speak for themselves:

It’s changeable

Imagine your company pays some motion designer a fortune to make a terrific tradeshow video. After charging thousands in fees, they knock it out of the park. It’s wowed every test audience you’ve shown it to, now you’re ready to take it on the road. Suddenly, a scandal rocks your company! The person who was set to present this video has resigned in disgrace. You quickly assign a new presenter, but your video uses the disgraced presenter’s name. Despite begging them on your knees, the motion designer insists they have no time to change the video. You send your new presenter off to tradeshows without the ruined video.

Your audiences aren’t wowed. Your money is wasted. You lay awake at night thinking “If only we’d made it in PowerPoint, changing the names would’ve been a piece of cake!”.

Anyone can use it

PowerPoint has an estimated 500 million users. Elementary school children know how to use it. Most corporate positions require it. You don’t need to source anyone with special skills and high fees to wow your audience. With only a little training, and a handful of plugins, anyone can make standout moving content in PowerPoint.

In summary, using PowerPoint to add motion design to your media is a cheap, easy and effective way to make your audience engage more with your message. Open the program, see what plugins may help you, and start making motion content to make your message memorable.

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